Cape pollution levels high
By Staff writers
July has been a very dry month and the balmy days are stretching into August.
And with the warm, still weather, air pollution levels have soared. During the past week the city's air quality exceeded the UK standard on four days in parts of the metropole.
Pollution was so bad on Sunday, that the Cape Times phoned the fire department to ask whether there was a major bush fire in the peninsula. The fire department reported there was none, but said they had had calls from people who thought the pollution was smoke.
According to the South African Weather Services (SAWS) rainfall figures for July, usually one of the wettest months for the city, have more than halved.
But winter is far from over. The weather service says there is a cold front approaching - and they expect the Western Cape to receive higher rainfall than usual in August, September and October.
Senior meteorologist at the SAWS, Evert Scholtz, said a cold front would reach Cape Town on Saturday afternoon, moving over the Free State and interior on Sunday.
"It looks like it's going to be a relatively strong cold front, and on Monday night we're expecting some snow again on the mountains in the Eastern and Western Cape."
Peter Johnston of UCT's Climate Systems Analysis Group, said rainfall fluctuations for the city were common and the city often saw either wetter or dryer seasons.
"We are entering what seems to be a dry period. The probability of dry years occurring within the next 10 years is high," Johnston said.
The lower rainfall has put pressure on many within the agricultural sector. Director of the Milk Producers Organisation of South Africa, Bertus de Jonge, said farmers who grow pastures for grazing have had to buy feed for their animals. Most farmers throughout South Africa have had to buy feed to supplement drier grazing pastures.
"Our milk producers are going through a difficult time," said Carl Opperman of Agri Wes-Cape.
The city council's health department said yesterday that the UK daily air quality standard of 50?g/m? had been exceeded on July 29 and 30, and on August 1 and 3. The high pollutant levels were for particulate matter only.
However, when measured against the lower South African air quality standards of 120?g/m?, air pollution levels exceeded the national standards only once last week, on Friday.
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